Murmuration

He’s crouched down, hunched over the photo in his hands.

His finger’s a little sore.

Walter’s standing above him, head cocked, a funny little smile on his face, like Mike has amused him somehow.

“What?” Mike croaks out.

“You were saying something,” Walter says. “About a cool cat, and that some woman wasn’t taking it. That you were faking or something.”

Mike shakes his head. “I… I don’t know. I’m not….”

“Into women?” Walter says. “I know. Which is why I thought that was weird.”

“No,” Mike says. “I can be. I’m just not. Not now.”

“Because of Sean.”

Yes. Because of Sean. But Mike doesn’t say that out loud. Instead he says, “You take all the photos here, right?”

“Yeah,” Walter says, smooth as all get out. Mike knows Walter is letting him deflect, but that’s okay. He doesn’t push, which is why Mike likes him. He’s thinking about Christine, the African Queen, but that’s not quite right and he doesn’t know why. “Yeah, all those photos you see up there belong to me. Something I do.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Walter repeats.

“Why do you take all the photos?”

“Because,” Walter says slowly, like he’s speaking through a mouthful of treacle. “Because… I. Because I… I can. I can. Because I can. Because I can.” His brow is furrowed, like he doesn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

“Okay, okay,” Mike says, not wanting to upset him until he can ask. He hears birds too, but he’s ignoring them even as he thinks about starlings, starlings, starlings. He knows they’re murmuring, but he can’t focus on that now. It’s this strange unreality that’s sweeping over him because he’s holding a photo that shows someone he doesn’t know and therefore shouldn’t exist in front of a man whose frown is getting deeper as he says, “Because I can,” again.

“That’s good,” Mike says, and god, how he wants to go to them mountains. “You take this one?”

Walter takes the photo from Mike and stares down at it. He’s sweating for reasons Mike doesn’t understand. He’s always liked Walter, really he has. Since the first day he came into the diner and met Sean, there’s always been Walter around somewhere. He’s young, maybe a couple of years older than Sean, and Mike wonders how he got the diner, when he opened it, if it was gifted to him or—

Headache. He’s starting to get another headache.

Walter suddenly smiles. “Yeah, I took this. I remember it. Before you got here. Maybe five, six months. We were out at the fountain, can’t really remember what for. Probably for an Amorea Women’s Club something or other. Always seems to be that way.”

Mike thinks of a man smoking a cigar in the dark saying fo sho and Landine, the African Queen, and that’s still not right. It’s not, it’s close, but no cigar, and he laughs to himself about that because there was a cigar, and it was left burning on the patio table after….

After—

“What about the woman?” Mike asks.

“What woman?”

“The woman in the photo. Next to Sean.”

“Oh yeah.” Walter holds the photo closer to his face like it’ll give him the answer. “The woman.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t… huh. I really couldn’t say.”

“But you knew her. All of you did.”

“Now wait a minute. Just because she’s—”